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Rivermist residents demand their money back

It took John Schneider and his family more than two decades to save up for a down payment on a home in the Hills of Rivermist in June of 2008. Ever since a massive retaining wall fractured behind Schneider’s spacious, three-bedroom residence in January the home of his dreams has become something of a nightmare.

By the time his family was able to return home from a forced evacuation following the slope failure, Schneider said that over the last two months he has endured the annoyance of living in a neighborhood controlled by security. He’s tired of flashing his ID every time he turns onto his street. His own mother was hassled when she tried to visit his family recently. With the security checks in place – most of them designed to keep out media, crooks and non-residents, according to Pulte — ordering a pizza has never been so complicated, Schneider said.

Add that annoyance to the precipitous decline of his home value and the Schneider family has had enough.

“My wife and I both said ‘this is the home I’m going to die in,'” he said. “Now we just want out.”

Instead of retaining a lawyer, Schneider is like many Rivermist residents who have sat down with officials from Pulte Homes and asked point blank, for their money back. Their message is simple:

“If you bought a can of beans at the store and then found out they were stale the store would give you your money back,” Schneider said.

On Saturday, Schneider and about a dozen other Rivermist homeowners gathered outside another Pulte subdivision underneath a towering, inflated pink pig in a top hat. Holding signs of protest and chanting “buy our homes back,” they passed out fliers to passing motorists in hopes of deterring potential home buyers from purchasing the Pulte product. Their numbers were small, but the protesters remained resolute.

“We’re going to get out homes bought back,” Schneider said. “If it takes years we are going to keep fighting until we have our homes bought back.”